Without this, Your Magic Training Will Fail

Joshua writes:

I have a question regarding your Approaching Magic Practice ebook. The original document suggests magic training through drilling either a single move or an entire effect/sequence in a very specific way.

I really like this approach and just wanted to say thank you very much. Your magic training approach helped me perfect the most difficult card routine I’ve ever tried to tackle, Darwin Ortiz The Sting. I’m sure you’re familiar with the effect, but there’s a notoriously awkward and difficult riffle stacking sequence that has a 2-1 (2 cards, 1 card—each side) rhythm as opposed to the more “used” sets like holding back 3 cards, 4, etc.—with your approach you outlined I was literally able to master the sequence and I don’t think I otherwise would have been able to.

Currently, I’m practising a whole routine that takes 5 and a half minutes to complete from start to finish and I’m finding 10 minutes not to be quite enough and 15-20 repetitions to me on the heavier side.

I was wondering if you had any recommendations for me on the best way to approach this scheme.

Thanks, Dominic for the indelible mark you have made on me as a magician!

Regards, Joshua

Great to hear you had value from the drill method. It’s helped me so much over the years and I love the results I see it getting in the students that commit to it.

Shhh… Let me tell you a secret… REALLY the whole drill method is Approaching Magic Practice is simply doing ONE thing:

Pushing you to make a commitment to

magic practice and to follow

up with consistency.

Denzel Washington said:

‘Without commitment, you’ll never start, but more importantly, without consistency, you’ll never finish‘

These are wise words. The number of reps of the routine doesn’t matter for effective magic training… What’s really at play here is a method to stop you from jumping from trick to trick, and commit to focus on just ONE routine, and then follow that up with regular practice. Simple, but it’s what 99% of magic enthusiasts fail to do.

How many repetitions? You know what feels right for you in each magic training session depending on the material… Perhaps do 3 repetitions of the whole routine twice a day… That’s enough… as long as you have the consistency of practice over a number of days or weeks. but commit to continuing that for 15 days. Video your day 1 performance and then your day 15 performance using the camera on your phone.

Remember to go SLOWLY through the routine and practice the patter as well as the moves. Never isolate what you say during the routine from the practice of the mechanics, they should be embedded together throughout your magic training sessions.

I wish you every success with it Joshua

Dominic Reyes

Openers – 3 Recommended Card Magic Tricks

by Dominic Reyes 1 Comment

Card magic tricks can be an excellent choice for the first trick you perform for your spectators. The first magic trick is often called an ‘opener’ by magicians.

The card magic tricks to use as openers need to have several important qualities:

The card magic tricks need to be fast.
They need to be visual and easy to understand.
The card magic tricks must be stunning to get peoples attention.
They should be easy to perform, so nothing can go wrong.
The card magic tricks should set a strong and consistent tone for the act.

The team at the Merchant of Magic have hand picked 6 card magic tricks that they feel would be an excellent choice for an act opener.

If you would like to find out more about using card magic tricks as openers, check out this article: How to choose Card Magic Tricks that Make Good Openers

Great Card Magic Trick Openers:

The Invisible Deck

A deck of bicycle playing cards that allows you to perform a wide variety of magic card tricks to your spectators.

Imagine having an invisible deck of playing cards become a visible deck and proving it by also having the freely selected invisible playing card instantly become visible as well. With the invisible deck you can get a spectator to call up a friend who somehow names the one playing card you have turned over in the bicycle deck prior to the call. There are many, many other uses.

The Ambitious Card

It’s been said that the Ambitious Card may be the most magical thing you can perform with a deck of cards, and with this DVD and the classic routines and performers it offers, you’ll never be at a loss for yet another way to make the spectator’s card come to the top of the deck as if by magic.

Identity

Approach anyone complete stranger and have a card selected, marked and then shuffled fully into the deck of cards. Next, you simply make a series of random marks on the back of any indifferent playing card. Those marks VISIBLY JUMP from card to card, finally VANISHING COMPLETELY. The cards are slowly spread to show the marks on the back of one card… It’s the spectator’s signed selection. ANOTHER impossible kicker… You offer the card to the spectator to keep. But to make it unique to them… You just give the card a shake… THE MARKS ON THE BACK OF THE CARD MAGICALLY AND VISUALLY FUSE INTO THE SPECTATOR’S VERY OWN NAME!

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The 3 Card Tricks Every Magician Should Learn

by Dominic Reyes 1 Comment

2876 magicians were asked to recommend just 3 magic card tricks

they thought every magician should learn.

Choosing magic card tricks can be very confusing. These are so many card tricks to choose from and they all have different results and levels of ability. The good news is that a few card tricks stand out above all the others to be the core tricks almost every beginner and expert should own. We polled 2876 magicians and asked them to recommend just 3 magic card tricks they thought every magician should learn.

THE BEST BUY CARD TRICK WINNERS

The Invisible Deck

The Svengali Deck

The Stripper Deck

The results were pretty much to be expected. Each of the most popular choices for magic card tricks turned out to be solid, easy to learn magic playing card decks that do the hard work for you. The special playing card decks are all specially gimmicked to give the owner the ability to perform a wide range of magic tricks, rather than being ‘one trick ponies’.

The most popular first choice was the Invisible Deck, getting over 61% of the votes.

Starting with self working magic card tricks is a great idea. The deck performs the technical part of the magic trick itself, which allows the performer to focus on his presentation and timing. It’s a great way to build confidence in your magic.

The decks are also the preferred starting magic tricks for kids. The instructions are easy to follow, and kids can do easy to follow tricks at first, then work up to more advanced tricks as they develop. Picking magic card tricks that grow with a kids’ abilities makes real sense.

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